Cinema on the Square (or is it now called Trump Cinema on the Square?) returns, July 28 to August 14

Event preview by Charles Cassady, Jr.

The Republican National Convention has finished in downtown Cleveland. The blood-drenched streets have been cleared of the bodies, but those public officials who survived must now debate on what to do with the smoldering ruins of what was once a major city – bulldoze them into the ground and rebuild, perhaps a gigantic white-marble memorial to the slain? Or just let what’s left of Cleveland stand forevermore, as a mute testimony to humanity that what happened here must NEVER AGAIN be permitted in a civilized and humane society, just as what was done with selected still-standing structures in Hiroshima and Stalingrad.

The psychological scars will remain for a long, long time to come, even as FEMA trailers relocated the last residents of what was once downtown to trauma-rehabilitation centers and experimental open-air asylums in cordoned-off parkland. How will Cleveland ever recover?

Well, there’s that Paul McCartney concert. But for those of you without that kind of money, Cinema on the Square is back again, to spirit us away from awful reality and help us overcome memories of carnage that we can never unsee.

The Muppet Movie (August 5th at the Palace Theatre)

[THE MUPPET MOVIE screens Sunday August 5th at 2:00 pm at the Palace Theatre as part of Cinema at the Square.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Kids these days have it rough, between cyber-bullying, broken homes, flesh-eating bath-salt zombies, psycho gun nuts at the movies who think they're comic-book villains, and a beckoning adulthood of bleak joblessness, One Nation Under Wall Street, and no talk of "hope" and "change" anymore. You want to stress young people out even further? Tell them that before The Muppet Show was a syndicated 1976-1981 TV smash, Jim Henson's creations had a brief run as part of the original Not Ready For Prime Time Players ensemble on Saturday Night Live. Yes, they did, right alongside John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Gilda Radner etc. there were "Jim Henson's Muppets" in recurring bits. No, they weren't Kermit or Fozzie. They were originals - grotesque, reptilian creatures, similar to those later seen in THE DARK CRYSTAL. The SNL Muppets dwelt in some kind of primordial landscape of jungle ruins and commonly told off-color jokes about their sex lives. True story!

It seemed to be a short-lived comedy experiment, and the Muppets straightaway got a different offer, to have their own TV variety show in England. And, with the success of that, came 1979's THE MUPPET MOVIE.

Repost: Breakfast at Tiffany's (August 4th at the Palace Theatre)

[BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S screens Saturday August 4th at 8:00 pm at the Palace Theatre as part of Cinema at the Square]

Review by Charles Cassady Jr.

Elsewhere on this site I vent my contempt for the general run of “date movies” and Valentine’s Day in general. However, I must be kind to BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S, screening in revival here coincident to the unfortunate romance-connected holiday (I guess if militant Islam conquers us, Valentine’s Day will be banned under Sharia law; is that a silver lining or what?). BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S is a celluloid valentine, to the only things that really deserve a valentine – to New York City in 1961, to the beauty and grace of Audrey Hepburn, and to youthful illusions and metropolitan delusions. All are given a glossy sheen in champagne direction by the recently deceased Blake Edwards.

King Kong (August 4th at the Palace Theatre in Playhouse Square)

[KING KONG screens Thursday August 4th at 7:30 pm at the Palace Theatre in Playhouse Square.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

I’m sorry, whomever got big megabucks in this brokeback town to “re-brand” Playhouse Square as “PlayhouseSquare.” I must assume the intent was to turn browsers towards PlayhouseSquare.com or PlayhouseSquare.org, rather than the fact that it saves money to do away with that extra space between the words. Even so, it’ll always be Playhouse Square to me (until I’m paid to print otherwise).

And Playhouse Square, in its heyday of yesteryear, was not only a live-theater venue of great renown but also a splendid place to catch movies, first-run and in roadshow-revival form, on the wide screen. To revisit – those golden days – and, most appropriately for today’s economic climate, the depths of the Great Depression – check out the original 1933 KING KONG, opening the 2011 summer series of Cinema On The Square this week.